


What Once Was

by LittleVala



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Friendship, Strong Female Characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-22
Updated: 2018-06-22
Packaged: 2019-05-26 21:31:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15009860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleVala/pseuds/LittleVala
Summary: Sam finally asks Vala about how she coped with being a host after Qetesh.





	What Once Was

“Vala can I ask you something?” Sam piped up after sitting in the mess in quiet with her female counter part on the Odyssey. It’d only been a year since Sam had trapped them inside the time dilation field but sometimes it had already felt like forever. Vala looked up from the same rag magazine she’d read a million times. How Vala could read the same celebrity gossip over and over again was beyond her.

“Of course Samantha, fire away!” Vala perked up and closed her magazine to pay more attention to Sam. It was common for them to spend lunch time together. They often ate around 1100 hours because Landry was off watering his plants, Daniel rarely surfaced to eat until Vala either brought him something or dragged him kicking and screaming to the mess, Mitchell usually started his second run around the Odyssey, and Teal’c would be practicing Kelno’reem even though he didn’t have a symbiote anymore. Sam picked at the crust on her sandwich.

“How did you manage to work past being Qetesh’s host after so many years?” Vala’s face fell as soon as the name Qetesh dropped out of Sam’s mouth.

“Oh,” was Vala’s only response. Sam instantly felt guilty for bringing it up.

“Forget it. I’m sorry Vala.” Sam quickly apologized and tried to sweep the conversation under the rug.

“No, it’s alright Sam. I just wasn’t expecting you to ask that. Why does it matter, though?” Vala huffed not really wanting to talk about it but then again Sam was her friend, and only gal pal on the Odyssey or at the SGC. “That came out wrong, I just meant what brought this up?” Vala corrected her tone.

“Lately I’ve been having these dreams and sometimes nightmares about Jolinar and her past. It’s irritating because I thought I had put that behind me but I guess not.” Sam pushed her tray away from her. The memories of her most recent nightmare making her stomach queasy. 

“I don’t think you’re able to just put it behind you. It becomes a part of you no matter how much you want it not to be. It didn’t help that once I was freed that my people tried to stone me to death. Talk about trauma on top of trauma.” Vala relaxed as she became more comfortable in regaling Sam with her past. “It was hard at first once I was on my own. Every night I would wake up in a cold sweat thinking I was back in her grasps because of some dream. The dreams were very realistic. More like a memory that I was reliving.” Vala paused as she thought about what to say next. She stood and moved to the window where she fixed her gaze on a far off distant star. 

“It came to a point where I even avoided sleep at all costs. I’d take anything just to stay awake. Eventually I would hallucinate which was worse than just dreaming. I can’t tell you how many bar fights I ended up in over hallucinations or something setting me off. I think Daniel told me your world calls it PTSD?” Vala looked away from the window to Sam for reassurance. Sam gave a nod, and Vala returned her gaze to the vast expanse of space. She use to love traveling the galaxy in a spaceship. It had been so freeing but now that they were trapped on the odyssey with no end, except death, in sight she felt like the vacuum of space would crush her any day now. She’d had more than a couple anxiety attacks since the time dilation field was put in place. She knew Sam had meant well, and did save their lives at the time but now they were forced live out their lives here for who knows how long.

“Sometimes I’m not sure if the things I like are things that I like or things that Qetesh liked. As much as I hate to admit it we became one. I found after I was released from my internal prison that foods from my homeward disgusted me because Qetesh had hated it. I found myself doing or trying things neither Qetesh nor I had done before just so I would know that the experience was my own and not some blended reality.” Reflecting on her past always made Vala realize that the stupid shit she pulled during heists or the way she would antagonize a would be assailant was her way of feeling alive and not like a puppet with out a soul. She could feel her emotions beginning to rise in her throat. She loved Sam and felt comfortable around her but she had promised her self a long time ago that she’d never let Qetesh make her cry again. 

“It’s hard knowing that thousands if not hundreds of thousands of innocent people have died at your hand. You know it wasn’t you but you can’t help but feel like it was. When I posed as Qetesh on P8X-412 that was the only time I felt safe in the galaxy but I hated it because I was posing as Qetesh. As much as it was my best and probably only option at the time it still felt like I had to be her to be someone. I had become a shell of myself filled with memories I couldn’t pin point as mine, or Qetesh’s or both. I mean sometimes there are things I remember that I know happened long before I was even born but then somethings are so docile and common place I’m not sure if it happened when I was myself or when I was Qetesh.” Vala finally turned back to Sam, and took her seat again.

“I don’t presume to know what you went through with Jolinar. Daniel only mentioned it briefly and it sounded like a sore subject so I never brought it up. I did read the mission report and I know Jolinar inhabited you with out your permission. I know this will probably hurt but you were lucky Sam.” Vala reached out a hand to touch Sam’s. Sam instantly retracted her arm off the table. 

“Lucky!?” Sam’s voice was louder than she had intended. “I don’t feel lucky.” Sam spit out which made Vala sink back in to her chair like a kicked puppy.

“I just meant you only had to deal with her a few days. No one is ever lucky when it comes to cohabitating a body. The Tok’Ra make it seem easy and normal but it’s anything but.” Vala attempted to fix the situation. She hadn’t intended to anger Sam.

“I’m sorry, it’s just I wake up sometimes and it takes me a couple minutes to remember who I am. It feels like I’ve been erased until I see my surroundings. I also remember people and places but I know that I’ve never actually met them or been there. It’s like a past life. I’ve tried to explain it to Jack before but he doesn’t understand.” Sam replaced her hand on the table, and Vala took it in hers.

“I’ve tried explaining it to Daniel too but I think because of Sha’re and that other woman Sarah, I believe her name was, he has a skewed view. I think sometimes he sees me and thinks about how things could have been different if Sha’re had lived. Then I try to tell him that not everyone copes the same and who knows how Sha’re would have ended up or if she would have even been his Sha’re anymore.” Vala trailed off on her rant.

“You’re not the same once you’e been a host. No matter how long it was for. You end up with these feelings and past experiences that change how you look at things whether you want them to or not.” Vala locked eyes with Sam in an attempt to get her point across.

“I will never be the girl I was before Qetesh. That woman is dead.”

“I will never be the woman I was before Jolinar, that woman is a distant memory.” Sam let out with a sigh.

“You’re always welcome to come sleep over in my quarters if you need to. Sometimes having a companion can keep the nightmares at bay.” Vala stood and walked around to Sam’s side of the table. Sam stood and hugged Vala. It was nice to let stuff out and actually have someone understand her side of it.

“Though the women we once were may be dead I think we are stronger because of the Goa’ulds we hosted even if we hate to admit it.” Sam pulled back from the hug with tears brimming her eyes. The same tears reflected in Vala’s eyes.

“Now, enough of this sadness! Lets go find the boys and try to get them to play twister!” And just like that a smile returned to Vala’s face and Sam couldn’t help but mimic it. Vala always had a way of cheering others up or at least a knack for changing the subject and quickly making people forget what they were sad about. She liked that about Vala. Vala didn’t dwell on the things she couldn’t change and neither would Sam.


End file.
